Those animals were futuristic seals. They grew larger to avoid predation by the futuristic sharks they shared their habitat with as futuristic sharks were larger than present day sharks and equipped with a proboscis, a grasping tongue covered in tiny teeth to pull prey into its jaws.

The futuristic seals likely evolved into predators due to avoid intense competition with the futuristic shark for food sources such as fish and likely caught prey alive and stored victims to eat in times of little food as their habitat appeared to be fairly harsh with little land dwelling life.

this really well done though at times it was really confusing with all those Nicks, lol.

when i read the chapter earlier where you added a character called matt i had to remember that this was an early series story. anyway love the story now to read the NCIS one that sounds good as we seem to kind of agree on pairings in that area.